This article was first published on The Washington Post June 10, 2019. In the article, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò quotes the Ruth Institute’s special report by
Fr. Paul Sullins, Ph.D. The report is called “Receding Waves: Child Sex Abuse and Homosexual Priests since 2000” and can be found here.
The part of the article where Fr. Sullins’ report is quoted is here: (The WP reporter’s question is in bold.)
Your testimony makes it clear that you feel that homosexuality — and the failure of the Vatican to respond to it — is a core part of the Church’s current problem in dealing with abuse. Can you explain, with as much clarity as possible, how homosexuality as you view it is correlated with abuse?
Let’s keep two arenas distinct: (1) crimes of sexual abuse and (2) criminal coverup of crimes of sexual abuse. In most cases in the Church today, both
have a homosexual component — usually downplayed — that is key to the crisis.
As to the first, heterosexual men obviously do not choose boys and young men as sexual partners of preference, and approximately 80 percent of the
victims are males, the vast majority of which are post-pubescent males. Statistics from many different countries regarding sexual abuses committed
by clergy leave no doubt. Horrific as the cases of abuse by true pedophiles are, the percentage is far smaller. It is not pedophiles but gay priests
preying on post-pubertal boys who have bankrupted the U.S. dioceses. One of the most recent and reliable studies, “Is Catholic clergy sex abuse
related to homosexual priests,” was conducted by Father Paul Sullins,
PhD, of the Ruth Institute. In its executive summary, the Sullins study reports, among other things, the following:
● “The share of homosexual men in the priesthood rose from twice that of the general population in the 1950s to eight times the general population
in the 1980s. This trend was strongly correlated with increasing child sex abuse.”
● “Estimates from these findings predict that, had the proportion of homosexual priests remained at the 1950s level, at least 12,000 fewer children,
mostly boys, would have suffered abuse.”
The preponderance of these cases of abuse is overwhelming. I do not think anyone can dispute this. That homosexuality is a major cause of the sexual
abuse crisis has also been stated by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his recent essay,
“The Church and the scandal of sexual abuse.” From his long experience as president of the CDF, he recalls how “in various seminaries homosexual
cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries.”
